Dineen O'Rourke

COP22 DelegateAmherst, MA

Dineen attributes her deep love for the world and her motivation to act to her many homes: the Atlantic shores of Eastern Long Island, pine tree forests and lakes of Midcoast Maine, and the green hills and valleys of Western Massachusetts. She is a rising senior at Hampshire College, studying climate change, politics, and social movements, and is active in the movement against fracked-gas infrastructure in the Northeast with Climate Action Now, the Sugar Shack Alliance, 350 Massachusetts, and Beyond Extreme Energy. As a lover of music, she revels in the power of weaving song, dance, and joy into our movements for change.

Now she carries the hope and possibility of victory in her heart, after being a key organizer in the successful movement against the Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct – a high-pressure fracked gas pipeline that was defeated after years of grassroots organizing. She attributes her organizing knowledge to Climate Summer, a program that led to a summer of biking 700 miles through the Berkshire mountains building resistance against fracked gas, and is now leading the rebuilding of the program for next summer, eager to continue growing the powerful youth-led climate justice movement of which she considers home. She carries a deeply-rooted sense of hope in her heart – and encourages you to as well! – knowing that youth-led movements will bring about the level of change our planet and society so desperately require.